Easy Soup Recipe – Minestrone Soup

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Minestrone soup is a classic Italian dish and this is a great idea for a starter recipe. Minestrone soup freezes well so you can make extra and freeze it in individual portions if you want to.

One reason why soup is such a good idea to use as a starter recipe is that it is not too filling. If you have spent hours making an elaborate main course, you will not want people to be full up before they get to that course! Soup can be thick and chunky, of course, but a lot of soups are light, refreshing and tasty.

Save the rich, filling soups for lunchtimes and make something lighter like the following minestrone soup recipe, for an appetizer or starter recipe.

What to Serve with Soup

If you are serving soup as a starter, try serving it with crusty bread and butter. This is probably what your guests will be expecting. Offer both white and brown bread, so people can choose whichever they prefer.

Other options include flour tortillas, crackers or a dollop of sour cream with some chives. Since minestrone soup is an Italian dish, what about serving it with some soft, fluffy Italian bread, to keep things authentic?

Traditional Minestrone Soup

This recipe makes enough soup to serve six people, so you can halve it if you want, or make the same amount and freeze some if you will not have that many guests.

This is a healthy soup recipe as well as a highly delicious one and the vegetables, beans, tomato puree, stock and other ingredients all blend perfectly to make the most wonderful soup.

What you will need:

3 peeled, chopped carrots

4 pints (2 litres) vegetable bouillon (stock)

2 crushed garlic cloves

1 chopped onion

14 oz (400g) can butter beans

14 oz (400g) can chopped tomatoes

1 tablespoon olive oil

4 chopped celery sticks

2 tablespoons tomato puree

2 peeled, diced potatoes

5 oz (140g) spaghetti, broken into small pieces

1/2 head shredded savoy cabbage

How to make it:

Blend the celery with the onion and carrots in a food processor until they are in small pieces. Heat the olive oil in a soup pot and add the garlic, potatoes and vegetables. Cover the pot and cook the mixture over a high heat for five minutes or until soft.

Stir in the tomato puree, tomatoes and stock and bring the mixture to a boil. Let the soup simmer for ten minutes on a low to medium heat.

Add the spaghetti and butter beans and cook the soup for another ten minutes. Add the cabbage and cook it for two minutes, then ladle the soup into bowls and serve it immediately with crusty bread.

This soup is going to dance on your taste buds, I promise you! Perhaps you have already tried international soup recipes like this Lebanese cucumber soup or similar, but minestrone is known all over the globe, so you might want to make your own – homemade minestrone is just so fresh-tasting and delicious!